More people now ask an AI assistant for recommendations before they search. “Who’s a good accountant for a small business near me?” “What’s the best way to rebrand a café?” The assistant writes an answer, and sometimes it names businesses.
So it’s worth knowing: are you in those answers? And if you are, is what’s said about you right?
Key points
- Ask AI assistants the same questions your customers ask, in the same words they use.
- Note whether you’re mentioned, whether the details are correct and which sources are cited.
- Missing or wrong answers usually come from unclear or inconsistent information online.
- Check every month or two, because the answers change.
How to check
You don’t need special tools to start. Open a few of the assistants people commonly use, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity, and ask them three kinds of questions.
1. Questions about you directly
- “What does [your business name] do?”
- “Is [your business name] in [your town] any good?”
This tells you whether the assistant knows you exist and what it believes about you.
2. Questions your customers ask before they know you
- “Who are the best [your service] providers in [your area]?”
- “Which [your type of business] would you recommend for [a specific need]?”
This is the important one. It shows whether you come up when someone is actually looking for what you do.
3. Questions about your expertise
- “How much does [your service] usually cost?”
- “How long does [your service] take?”
If you’ve written good answers to these on your site, an assistant might draw on them or even cite your page.
The goal isn’t to trick an AI into mentioning you. It’s to make the truth about your business easy to find and hard to misunderstand.
What to write down
Keep a simple record each time you check. Here’s an example of what a few rows might look like:
| Question | Mentioned? | Accurate? | Sources cited |
|---|---|---|---|
| What does [your business] do? | Yes | Mostly, old address | Old directory listing |
| Best [service] in [area]? | No | Two competitor sites, a review site | |
| How much does [service] cost? | No | A national comparison site |
Patterns will show up quickly. Maybe an assistant keeps using an old address from an outdated listing. Maybe competitors are named because they have clear pages answering exactly the question you asked.
If you’re missing or wrong
The fixes are the same good habits that help with search engines, just applied more strictly:
- Say clearly what you do on your own site. Who you are, what you offer, who it’s for and where you work, in plain words, on your home page and your about page.
- Fix inconsistent details. Update old directory listings, your Google Business Profile and your social profiles, so they all say the same thing.
- Answer real questions on your site. Pages and FAQs that answer specific questions give assistants something solid to draw from.
- Earn mentions elsewhere. Reviews, local press, industry directories and articles that mention you all add to the picture.
- Be patient. Some assistants search the web live, others rely on what they learned earlier. Changes can take a while to show.
A word of caution
AI assistants can be confidently wrong. If one says something inaccurate about your business, don’t panic. Fix the sources you control, check again in a few weeks, and remember that customers usually visit your website before making a decision. Make sure what they find there is clear and current.
Questions people also ask
Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?
Not in the normal answers. Some AI tools are experimenting with advertising, but being mentioned in a regular answer comes from what the assistant can find and trust about you.
Why do different assistants give different answers?
They use different sources, different methods and sometimes different dates of information. That’s why it’s worth checking more than one.
How often should I check?
Every month or two is plenty for most businesses. Check again after any big change, like a new service, a move or a new website.